TEA SCONES and PBS MASTERPIECE, "HOME FIRES"

Even a GRITS girl can make a good scone!

GRITS.....

Girls Raised in the South! 

Estelle's is "head- over -HIGH-heels" in love with the new

PBS Masterpiece showing of

HOME FIRES!

This setting just called for afternoon Tea Time

with

Sweet Cream Scones with cream and Plum Jam

along with

some Downton Abbey Estate Blend tea.

If you are a fan of BBC productions, you will quickly fall in love

with this new series! 

Home Fires, is the series inspired by Julie Summers’ non-fiction book, “Jambusters. It is a 6-part series tht has recently debuted on PBS Masterpiece. The lovely BBC film creation gives a fascinating social history of the WI, Women's Institute, during WWII (when its members included the future Queen Elizabeth II, along with her mother and grandmother. 

As the conflict takes hold, separating women from their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, those

left behind find themselves under increasing and extraordinary pressures in a rapidly fragmenting world. Together, they form the Great Paxford Women’s Institute, whose sole purpose is to help maintain the nation’s fabric in its darkest hour. While the members of the isolated village couldn’t feel further away from the impending bloodshed and battlefields, they soon find out they are not immune from the effects of war 

While Home Fires is set in Cheshire, it is also filmed there. The series was shot in Bunbury village which knows the effect of World War II all too well. In 1940, the village was attacked by a German aircraft returning from a night raid on Liverpool. The plane dropped surplus bombs over the village, destroying shops to a point beyond repair. Home Fires is showing on PBS Masterpiece on Sunday evenings at 8:00 PM Central time.

Now, how about that tea time!  

The Downton Abbey Estate Blend Tea

can be found at

World Market.
It is described as
Earl Gray black tea infused with
bergamot orange oil and vanilla. 

Sweet Cream Tea Scones

2 cups flour

2 t. baking powder

2 T. sugar

 pinch of salt

1/2 cup buttermilk (and 1T. reserved)

one egg

1/3 cup salted butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

Measure out 1/2 cup, plus 1 T. buttermilk in a measuring cup.

Add the egg, and mix well.

Place all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the cold butter.

Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with two knives

until the mixture is fine and crumbly.

Mix in the buttermilk/egg mixture.

Combine gently.

Place the dough onto a floured surface and gently roll out to

3/4-inch to 1-inch rectangle and cut with biscuit cutter.

Place on a ungreased cookie sheet and brush with remaining

buttermilk/egg mixture. 

Bake for about 18 minutes untill golden brown.

Serve with jam and sweet cream. 

It's Foodie Friday!!!

http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Call The Midwife....Bravo PBS!

I don't know if you were able to view Call the Midwife on PBS, but I am highly recommending this series! If you are an avid Downton Abbey fan, then I think you are going to LOVE this beautifully scripted and acted series. I cannot get enough of these well produced shows from the UK! Light the fire, pour a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy the show....you will laugh, you will cry and you too will be shouting...BRAVO!!

Call the Midwife is a moving and intimate insight into the colorful world of midwifery and family life in 1950’s East London. We are introduced to the community through the eyes of young nurse Jenny Lee as she arrives at Nonnatus House to live and work as a midwife alongside an Order of Nuns. 

As Jenny comes to terms with her new life, we meet some phenomenal people who prove that their warmth, resilience and determination are to be admired beyond measure. At the heart of this world are the Sisters of St. Raymond Nonnatus who have been active in the East End as Anglican nursing nuns since the beginning of the 20th century.

The Sisters and the midwives of Nonnatus House carry out many nursing duties across the community. However, with between 80 and 100 babies being born each month in Poplar alone, their primary work is to help bring safe childbirth to women in the area and to look after their countless newborns family who has found her way into nursing and midwifery by a circuitous route.

My favorite characters.....

Eternally good-humored and monumentally kind, Chummy is crippled by lack of self-confidence. Her tall height and physical clumsiness plays its part, but a loveless childhood spent in boarding schools has made the greater impact. 

An adept midwife, she is hampered by acute shyness and - perhaps more crucially – a complete inability to ride a bike. Chummy soon wins the hearts of her colleagues, but her struggle for self-belief will threaten to capsize her. Chummy is played by Miranda Hart

Sister Julienne is the Sister-In-Charge at Nonnatus House. Deeply religious, she is also profoundly practical and confers dignity on her patients through her sensitive, non-judgmental approach.

She is often called upon to mediate between her fellow sisters when they quarrel - this is an almost exclusively female world, and her tact and gentleness are essential to its happiness. 

Sister Julienne is played by Jenny Agutter